Hundreds of federal agents from Border Patrol, ICE, the U.S. Army, Coast Guard and other agencies sat in plastic chairs just east of downtown Nogales to hear Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praise President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Noem, along with the National Border Patrol Council President Paul Perez, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, shared the stage to tout the various successes of the administration in its first year back in office.
Dozens of journalists were taken in shuttles down a few miles of dirt road to listen to the predictably partisan speeches, delivered in front of a newly installed, black-painted steel bollard wall.
The paint-it-black idea has been credited to Trump, who believed black paint would make the steel fence hotter and harder to climb. (Critics argue that the paint job doesn’t meaningfully deter crossings because people adapt almost immediately — using gloves, ladders, rope or just crossing at night.)
We couldn’t help but think: That black fence is a surprisingly good metaphor for the speech itself — heavy on symbolism but light on substance.
If you really want to see Noem’s entire speech, you can watch it here and count how many times she credits her boss.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem speaks along the border fence near Nogales on Wednesday. (Joe Ferguson.)
Why did they go to Nogales?
Cynically, we’ll note that the Nogales border is pretty damn far away from Minnesota, where federal officials are talking about pulling out after flooding the streets and killing two citizens, and from Washington D.C., where Democrats are demanding Noem resign or face impeachment.
Officially, Noem told the audience she was there to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Trump administration securing the border. And the officials went heavy on the congratulations to Trump — praising him 28 separate times in roughly 35 minutes, per our count.
“We're here to talk about how secure this border is and to celebrate that we have one year of a secure border and a secure United States of America,” Noem said, later adding, “What we had going on here in this country under the Biden administration was the greatest humanitarian crisis that we had ever seen in our history.”
Reasonable historians can debate whether the immigrant crisis on the border was the “single greatest American humanitarian crisis in American history.”
But we expect that experts might put forced indigenous dispossession, slavery and the Civil War on their list of top humanitarian crises.
“Forcing media” to come to Nogales
Scott boasted that the event in Nogales would force reporters to see the administration’s success in stopping illegal immigration, drug smuggling and human smuggling.
“We're forcing the media to come right to the border and see the most secure border that this country has ever had,” Scott said.
First, it’s probably important to mention no one was forced to go to the presser. And of the dozens who did, most were Southern Arizona locals, or from Phoenix. It would be hard to point to an outlet that hasn’t already previously acknowledged that border arrests are down since Trump took office.
We also noticed that a few hundred yards behind the press conference, in a wash, there was no fencing for several feet.
Stopping the flow of fentanyl
Noem pushed a long-standing narrative that tough border policies have led to a dramatic decline in the flow of fentanyl into the US.
”The flow over this border of illegal fentanyl has been cut in half since President Trump has been in office,” Noem claimed.
We’re not sure how Noem gets to this figure, but it has been repeated by Trump allies, and even Biden officials, who cite the decline in fatal overdoses nationally and tie those to high-profile drug seizures as proof.
Most importantly, it is important to note that the federal government does not track how much fentanyl enters the country each year.
One indicator that could support the claim is the decline in fatal drug overdoses, but that’s a complex metric that should include the growing availability of rescue medications like Narcan to save lives. (Plus overdose deaths are actually up recently in Arizona.)
We could also look at drug seizures. CBP statistics show fentanyl seizures have dropped steadily since the middle of former President Joe Biden’s term in 2023, including a big drop during Trump’s first year.
Quiet at the border
Noem and others repeatedly bragged about the record low number of encounters with individuals suspected of illegally crossing the border.
“Customs and Border Protection has recorded the lowest number of encounters in the agency's history in 2025,” Noem told the several hundred federal agents in the audience.
The 33rd governor of South Dakota is right about the numbers, but it may shock you that she didn’t put it in much context.
The number of encounters peaked in 2023, before dropping big-time during the last year of Biden’s presidency when he essentially shut down asylum at the border. They then plummeted to historic lows almost immediately after Trump took office and started terrorizing immigrant communities throughout the country.
Deadliest land route
Noem emphasized how dangerous the U.S.-Mexico border was under Biden, citing a United Nations Declaration.
”In fact, during the Biden administration and those open border policies, we saw even the UN declare that the United States and Mexico was the deadliest land route in the world,” Noem said.
Noem’s claim is true. In 2022, the International Organization for Migration documented 686 migrants who died or disappeared along the US-Mexico border.
But that number — which counts deaths in both the U.S. and Mexico near the border — dropped in 2023, again in 2024 and in 2025.
However, Noem didn’t mention that the U.S.-Mexico border crossing migration route is still listed as one of the deadliest land routes in the world.
Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar has announced he’s retiring from the City of Tucson.
Kasmar has been with the Tucson Police Department since 2000.
Retiring Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar
Tucson Deputy Police Chief Monica Prieto has been selected as TPD’s next chief.
Over the course of her career, Prieto has worked nearly every corner of the department, from patrol and investigations to professional standards and executive leadership. As the department’s second-in-command, she oversaw police operations and administrative functions across five bureaus.
Prieto was appointed by Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure. Her appointment has the support of the Tucson Police Officers Association — the union representing rank and file Tucson police officers.
Kasmar isn't really retiring, however.
He is starting a job with Pima County next month as a deputy county administrator.
Kasmar's new position is one of the most senior and most powerful positions in the entire county (other than the elected officials themselves).
He is expected to provide oversight for several county departments including: Public Defense Services, Justice Services, Detainee and Crisis Systems, and Pima Animal Care Center.
Kasmar will talk about his new gig on the “Bill Buckmaster Show” today at noon.
Nanos goes national: Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos gave a rambling press conference on Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance yesterday, giving the national media a taste of the meandering communications that Southern Arizona reporters have been dealing with for years. Nanos confirmed the blood found outside Guthrie’s door tested positive for her DNA, but officials don’t have any suspects yet, nor any proof of life.
Romantic diplomacy: South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela and two South Tucson council members visited Colombia last month to attend a conference, a trip the mayor said was meant to show solidarity with Latin American countries amid attacks from Donald Trump, the Star’s Tim Steller reports. Valenzuela’s boyfriend, former New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, also happened to be a speaker at the conference. Progressive International, the group that hosted the event, listed Valenzuela as the “mayor of Tucson” on its website, making the long-running mix-up of the cities an international misunderstanding.
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Know your rights: After Gov. Katie Hobbs released a “know your rights” website for Arizonans who encounter Immigration and Customs Enforcement, legislative Republicans accused her of pandering to her Democratic base, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Meanwhile, TUSD board members plan to send “know your rights” cards to every family in the district, per KOLD’s Isabela Lisco.
Signatures vs. servers: Groups opposed to the planned data center in Marana turned in 2,800 signatures to put the 600‑acre data center project on the ballot for voters to decide in the next general election. The signatures still need to be verified by the Marana town clerk, but organizers got twice the minimum of 1,382 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.
Last call: Monday is the last day to register to vote for the next Regional Transportation Authority election, where voters will decide whether to continue a half-cent transportation sales tax to fund a $2.67 billion, 20-year regional transportation plan, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel reminds folks.
How much should it cost to keep voters informed?
Former Republican City Council candidate JL Wittenbraker took to Twitter on Monday to share her many questions about the cost of the 283-page RTA Next voter guide that arrived in the mail.
To be clear: This thing is not light reading. Or even light lifting. And getting information out to tens of thousands of voters doesn’t come cheap.
The girth comes from the number of people who shelled out $25 to wedge their opinions into the legally required guide — and then it doubled in size because federal law requires it to be printed in both English and Spanish.
But clearly she didn’t read that far into the pamphlet. (Kudos to Tucson Sentinel editor Dylan Smith for reading it for her.)
But the real question in our mind is: Who is spending more, the RTA or the pro-RTA group paying for those televised ads?